Simon Gagne, Teddy Purcell, and Pavel Kubina were the game's three stars.

It's nice to be on the right side of one of these blowouts, for a change. The Lightning cut their goal differential for the season from a -8 to a -2, with eleven games left in this homestand. That's looking up, all of a sudden.

You know the rest of the Eastern Conference is going to be deeply unhappy to see the Gagne/Lecavalier line having a multi-point explosion like this when they look at tonight's scoresheet. If Gagne and Lecavalier get going on this homestand and carry it through to the postseason, the Lightning are going to be one of the two toughest outs come the playoffs in the East.

Mattias Ritola had 3 shots in 12:12. There was some discussion on the message board who the Lightning's new human victory cigar is in blowouts. It used to be Andre Roy. I'm voting for Ritola, now.

Dmitri Kazionov had the winning goal in the shootout to propel Kazan to a 3-2 win over Astana. Kazionov played 12:03 in the match, and was Kazan's fourth shooter. Ex-Norfolk Admirals great Brandon Bochenski had 19th goal of the season in the loss for Astana.

Former Lightning forward Dimitry Afanasenkov straffed Cherepovets for 1 goal and 1 assist in support of Chelyabinsk's 6-3 win over Vasily Koshechkin and Cherepovets. Koshechkin was pulled in the second period after allowing young forward Anton Burdasov to score, which put Cherepovets down 4-1 at that time in the game. Afanasenkov's goal was his 6th of the season.

He scores! Beukeboom (pictured) notched his first goal since the final game of the 2009-2010 season on the power play early in the third period. This was his first multi-point game since November 28, 2009. Beukeboomâ€™s goal was scored against fellow Lightning prospect Michael Zador, who filled in for Jordan Binnington early in the second period down 3-1.

Ashton scored his 20th of the year and fourth in four games with TC, helping the Americans to a 7-4 home win. He now has 12 points in just five games with TC. Ashton scored 24 goals last year and 30 in his draft year.

Reading won Game 3 of their three-game set with Florida, topping the Blades 5-4 Saturday night in a game the Hanson brothers would love. Late in the first period there was a brouhaha with players leaving the bench, spearing, and former Lightning prospect and Everblades captain Mike Egener being kicked out for deliberately attempting to injure a player. On the scoresheet, Alex Hutchings scored his first goal since his return from injury and is now up to three points in two games since he came back.

Norfolk outshot Syracuse 43-29 in the game, including 19-9 in the third period, but they could not crack J.P. Levasseur to get the equalizer. It's too bad, too, because Norfolk lost ground to both Hershey and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, who both won tonight. Norfolk travels into Portland Tuesday night to take on the Pirates.

Ex-Avs draft pick Linus Videll had a goal in Sodertalje's 3-1 win over Farjestads. The win vaulted Sodertalje 2 points ahead of Farjestads into 10th in the 12 team Elitserien. If Sodertalje can find a way to stay in the top 10, they'll avoid the Kval till Elitserien promotion/relegation round.

The Big Red left a point on the board as Colgate (3-18-2) scored the tying goal with less than two minutes left in the game. Tomorrow nights game moves to Cornell for the second half of the home and home.

All three teams associated with the Lightning organization won in shootouts Friday night, with the Blades defeating Reading 4-3. Hutchings played in his first game since December 10th after suffering a lower body injury. He notched an assist in his return. Hutchings did not participate in the shootout.